Switching flash-drive access between computers at the push of a button

I estimate that through a purchase and installation made today at Microcenter in Cambridge MA, I will be able to each year, save approx 5 hours of time that would otherwise be spent twisting and turning and squinting plugging and unplugging USB devices.

For $40, I bought an Iogear Automatic Printer Switch, and for $10 I bought a Goldx USB 5-in -1 Quick-Connect package containing 5 adapters and a wire. I installed the Automatic Printer switch software on both my HP and Dell computers. I plugged a 2.0 GB USB flash drive into the 'printer switch' instead of a printer. I connected the 'printer switch' to both my computers. Presto! Now I can just by pushing the printer switch button, change from accessing reading and writing to files on the flash drive using the Dell computer, to accessing reading and writing to the same files on the same flash drive but using the HP computer, and vice versa.

As of now, I am a light year ahead of where I was yesterday, because I can do things like: change a file on the flash drive on my Dell computer, save the page, push a button, then change it on my HP computer, save the page, push a button, and then be back working on it on my Dell computer, all without plugging anything in or unplugging anything.

I did a stopwatch test of how long it takes me to type Dell into a text file on the flash drive on my Dell computer, save, push the USB switch button, type HP into the text file on the flash drive in my HP computer, save, and then return to my Dell and type Dell, using the 'printer switch' method and the old manual method.

Using the Iogear 'printer switch', this took me 61 seconds. Using the manual method of removing and inserting the flash drive, it took me 112 seconds (in part because I was reluctant to avoid the time-consuming processes Windows prescribes if one is to 'safely' remove a device).

Aside from the slow speed of action, with the manual method, there is the human physical and mental wear and tear in terms of twisting and turning and carefully putting things in and pulling them out. The manual way, the physical connections become more and more stressed every time a thing is pulled out or put in.

Aside from the speed of action, there are many occasions when I have simply not done something that I would have done had the push-button switch been available for me.

The test maneuver was 51 seconds faster using the USB switch.

If I had to perform the kind of maneuver tested once a day, the USB switch would save me 52 hours over ten years. If one were to value my time at $20 per hour, the average wage of the American worker, the USB switch will save me $1040 over 10 years even though it only cost me $50.

Now if 100 million persons were to follow my USB switch gospel, and each save $1000 in time over ten years, that would be 100 billion dollars. Such saving could put me into serious contention for a Nobel Prize.

Problem is, I could end up spending more than 5 hours this year, trying to figure out how to get my Samsung 300 GB external hard drive, to work with the 'Printer Switch'. So far this maneuver has been beyond my powers.